


The Queen is Dead, Long Live Veritas

by srmiller



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 09:19:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1739402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/srmiller/pseuds/srmiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six months ago Thea Queen left Starling City to train with the man who had sired her and in that time she is changed from a nieve, protected heiress to a finely honed weapon made from steel and fire. She's no longer Thea Queen, now she is Vertias.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Queen is Dead, Long Live Veritas

At first, when she'd hit the hard cement floor with a dull thud she'd bite her lip to keep the sound of pain in her throat.

No weakness was allowed here, not even for pain.

Not that she'd known where _here_ was.

When she’d gotten in to the limo with Malcolm Merlyn he had promised only two things: the first, to never lie to her, and the second, to teach her to be strong, in every sense of the word.

So she’d gotten on the plane with him and hadn’t bothered to ask where they were going because it didn’t matter. She wasn’t leaving Starling City to go shopping in Paris, or to travel the Italian countryside, which was something Thea Queen would have done but Thea Queen was as dead as if she’d been killed in the train station during the siege.

She hadn’t known then who’d take the naive heiress' place, but Malcolm had assured her by the end of her training she’d find a new name for herself, something the world could know her by and fear.

Not that she’d wanted to be feared, what she wanted she kept a secret close to where she thought her soul used to be, but was now only darkness and an echoing hollowness she would eventually get used to.

The day she’d arrived at the large mansion in the middle of a countryside Malcolm had explained he owned the twenty acres surrounding it but she was not allowed to go further than the hedgerow just beyond the manor’s patio. If she did, Merlyn warned, she’d be on her own.

There were other rules as the days passed, on how much she was allowed to eat (“You can’t be dependent on filling your stomach every time you’re hungry, you have to learn to subsist on as little possible so as not to be dependent on food for strength.”), what she was allowed to wear and who she could talk to, because despite the presence of servants she wasn’t to speak to them, nor they to her. They didn’t even dare look in her in the eyes.

And despite how it chaffed she had followed the rules because he delivered on his promises time and time again; every day she could feel herself become less Thea Queen and more…something else she couldn't define but felt like strength. So while hitting the hard cement ground had still hurt it was a kind of pain she’d learned to respect and draw strength from.

 _You can hurt me,_ she’d quietly seethe, _but you won’t know it._

In the beginning he’d thrown his words at her like daggers, telling her she was soft, she was weak, her instincts were slow and she couldn’t take a hit.

But whenever she felt the tears of anger and doubt and self-loathing he put a hand on her shoulder and looked her dead in the eye, “You wanted the truth, didn’t you? It’s like chemo, it kills the bad cells but it kills some of the good as well, and in the end, if you survive it, it makes you stronger. Truth helps destroys the weakness. You’ll have no weakness when you’re done here.”

But it wasn't just truth about her skills he gave her, while he threw punches, attacked with bamboo sticks, and taught her how to block every assault, he revealed every lie fed to her by her family, by the people she had loved and foolishly trusted.

At first, they’d hurt more than bruises, the cuts, the broken bones.

Her mother had been involved in Walter’s kidnapping, had arranged the sinking of the Gambit and had caused the death of Robert Queen and nearly killed the man who had once been her brother. Malcolm told her between sword fights and teaching her how to disarm a ticking bomb about her brother’s nightly activities. About his green hood and where he’d really been the five years he’d been gone.

She’d almost cut the wrong wire when Malcolm had explained to her Oliver had killed him the night of the Undertaking.

When she was pulled from the tub of ice water, gasping for breath, Malcolm had explained to her who Slade Wilson was and how he’d been defeated.

Oliver Queen confessing his love for Felicity Smoak had been the only secret she’d already known.

Roy’s disappearance and his temporary insanity had been revealed to her while she'd learn to stitch up her own wounds which hadn't cut as deep as learning the two men she’d trusted most in the world had lied to her as easily as breathing.

Learning how easy it had been for them to look her in the eye and treat her like something fragile which would break at the slightest pressure was the moment she'd decided to take those truths, as she had the pain, and turn them in to strength.

Four months in and she knew things Thea Queen would never have thought to learn; how to break a man’s neck, who the Arrow was and his connection to the Huntress; how to shoot a gun, and why Tommy had died. The woman she was now-the warrior she was now-knew how to build a bomb or disarm it, and she knew just how deeply the Lances were entrenched in the secrets of Starling City.

By month six, she was a weapon.

Malcolm assured her she had years to go before she would master any of the skills she’d learned during the course of the summer, but he promised her she was ready for whatever steps she wanted to take next and she was free to go whenever she wanted.

He had nothing more he could teach her.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked as she stood in the doorway of the manor which had been her prison more than her home and looked back at the man who had made her who she was, in more ways than she was ready to admit.

His voice was cool and detached, as if he hadn’t spent the last six months torturing her. But he made no apologies because he’d made her strong. He’d taken something pliant and had molded her in to hardened steel.

He’d said once she was a child and a weapon he could be proud of and she hadn’t bothered to explain she’d done none of this for him because now she was leaving with only the clothes she’d worn when she’d arrived. Clothes which fit differently now over the new muscles and hardened frame. She imagined in the coming days, after returning to Starling City, it was a feeling she would quickly get used to.

“I’m going to do what I wish had been done for me,” she finally answered, her voice harder and steadier than it had ever been before. “I’m going to expose the truths kept hidden away. Moira and Oliver Queen’s, his merry band of followers', the Lances’...anyone who has ever looked someone in the eye and told themselves the people they loved were better off not knowing, I’m going to expose their lies once and for all.”

He nodded, but she wasn’t looking for his approval, she neither needed nor wanted it because once she stepped out the door she was on her own, and she relished the prospect of finally being her own anchor, her own strength. Never again would she be led by someone’s idea of what was best for her.

She was her own compass now.

“Who will you be?” he asked before she could walk away.

She turned and walked out the door, feeling invincible as the name rolled off her tongue, “I’m Veritas.”


End file.
